


Eve

by blubark



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, eve polastri appreciation in that villanelle thinks she hangs the goddamn sun and she might be right, nobody really dies but also everyone dies, their fucked up goddamn dynamic dialled up to eleven, unexplained time loop that killed me to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 02:23:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19416526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blubark/pseuds/blubark
Summary: Villanelle didn’t really remember that first time. She hadn’t even seen Eve, the whole thing over too quickly. Eve hadn’t planned for it to be special. She wasn’t a romantic like Villanelle.Neither of them had savoured it like they should....Villanelle falls in love with Eve, after Eve kills her.ORVillanelle learns that Eve is the centre of the universe.





	Eve

Villanelle woke to the sound of knocking.

She rolled over in her bed with a groan, screwing her eyes tight against the sound.

‘Room service,’ a woman called through the door.

Villanelle thumped her head back against the pillow, rubbing at her temple to soothe the headache behind her eye, the lack of sleep screaming through her body. The first glow of morning was only just showing through the curtains, thin and shitty as they were.

The knocking continued, and she took a deep breath, ready to murder whoever had woken her. This was Konstantin’s fault for insisting she stay at the Twelve’s preferred hotel, this shitty, boxy, budget motel that smelt of beer. She would murder him too.

She wrenched open the door, furious. ‘I did not order – ‘

…

Villanelle didn’t really remember that first time. She hadn’t even seen Eve, the whole thing over too quickly. Eve hadn’t planned for it to be special. She wasn’t a romantic like Villanelle.

Neither of them had savoured it like they should.

…

She woke to the sound of knocking. She blinked at the ceiling, raising a hand to touch her forehead, the lack of bullet-hole almost surprising.

‘Room service,’ a woman called through the door.

Villanelle looked at the clock. 5:25. The knocking continued, and Villanelle looked at the door.

‘I did not order room service,’ she yelled. ‘Go away.’

The knocking stopped, and Villanelle was just about to roll over and go back to sleep when the electric-lock buzzed and the door opened. She scrambled to get out of bed, but the Asian woman was faster, landing a bullet in her gut.

Villanelle crashed to the floor, the pain leaving her gasping, reeling, like falling through the ice into a fire. Her blood spilled through her fingers, leaving her as though it had been waiting for the escape. She coughed, tasted blood, and looked up into the barrel of the gun, the woman unfocused behind it, the light catching the ends of her hair and haloing around her.

She had time to realise she didn’t want to die.

…

That felt like the first time.

…

She woke to the sound of knocking.

She jumped from the bed, taking the three short steps to the cupboard, wrenching it open.

‘Room service,’ a woman called through the door.

‘In a minute!’ Villanelle yelled, digging into her suitcase. She tossed her clothes onto the floor, fingers curling around the kitchen knife stashed at the bottom of the bag. She should have brought a gun, but that was slightly harder to get through customs.

She heard a buzz as the electric lock was overridden, turned to brandish her knife. A knife to a gunfight, she had time to think.

The woman was faster, and Villanelle used her last breath to lift her head and look at that halo of hair, to fix it in her memory. The woman was studying her, eyes raking over Villanelle’s body before they met Villanelle’s gaze and stared.

Villanelle wondered what she saw.

…

She woke to the sound of knocking.

Maybe it was God, she thought. Maybe God didn’t want her to die here, in this shitty hotel, at the hands of some coward who ambushed people at the arse-crack of dawn. Her parents had been deeply religious, and perhaps that was worth something even if their version of religion didn’t appear to be based on anything Villanelle could recognise at Sunday school. That could have been her lack of attention, though. She preferred running through the woods, playing at Artemis, throwing stones at the boys who tried to join her. Wild and free.

Feral, her mother said. Wicked. 

But perhaps she wasn’t some evil thing, and He had made her to live.

…

She woke to the sound of knocking.

…

She woke.

…

Again.

…

The first time she managed to kill the woman, the woman had already won. Her jerkiness on the trigger was an asset in this stupid, small room, offering Villanelle little chance of avoiding some wound.

She curled up around her stomach, again, and pretended to cry. The woman lowered the gun, eyes wide, and Villanelle seized the opportunity.

‘I want my mum,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘My mum,’ Villanelle said, making her lower lip tremble. ‘Please.’

The woman took a small step back as Villanelle stretched out a hand.

‘Please, don’t let me die alone.’ Villanelle made her voice as small and pathetic as possible, hand shaking.

The woman actually took it, delicate, her fingers cool and soft, her eyes gentle.

Villanelle allowed herself to stroke her thumb across the back of the woman’s hand, allowed herself to enjoy the comfort. It was almost enough to make her stop.

But she pulled, hard, tugging the woman towards her and reaching up with her other hand to bury her fingers in that glorious hair, shoving the woman’s head into the corner of the side table.

The woman slumped to the floor, mouth making weird sounds, like she was choking, eyes rolled back in her head. Villanelle felt the triumph burst through her body, overriding the pain.

Villanelle smiled, lay down next to her, watching her face twitch through a probable brain bleed as Villanelle bled out into the world next to her. She stroked a finger down the woman’s cheek, studied her face as they faded together. 

‘Next time,’ she whispered, ‘I’ll get you first.’

…

Maybe she was in hell, maybe she was dead, and buried, living out her last moments as an exercise in futility as punishment for some perceived sin.

Or maybe this was heaven, as close to it as a non-believer like her could get, a beautiful woman fixated solely on her, sharing her final moments in quiet intimacy.

…

She missed her mark. Oh well. Next time. She just had time to pull her face into an exaggerated expression of exasperation before the woman shot her.

Of course.

She realised that she didn’t know the woman’s name. She knew her every expression, knew the way her body moved, knew the way her breathing changed depending where Villanelle was along the path to dying, but not her name.

It felt less intimate, somehow, than her other knowledge. Less urgent.

‘What’s your name?’ Villanelle said, fingers clutched around the bullet-hole in her stomach. The woman had a real fetish for shooting her stomach.

‘Eve,’ the woman said, teeth clenched. ‘Eve Polastri.’

…

Eve.

…

It was always the same. The woman had no sense of fun, killed like she didn’t understand the many, many ways people could die.

If it was heaven, Villanelle thought, it would be different each time, the woman bursting into the room with a sword, a rope, a candlestick, instead of the same dull gun, the same sharp gut-shot.

If it was hell, the woman would be a man and he would be ugly, he would hide his gaze from her, he wouldn’t let her look and she wouldn’t want to.

Maybe it was an in-between. Limbo, or purgatory. (Life.)

She thought the most likely explanation for this all was that she was the only real thing in the universe, and it couldn’t end.

She liked it. She’d always felt that others were cloaked with an aura of unreality, their reactions either too predictable or too animalistic to be the product of thoughts like hers. 

So, no matter how beautiful Eve was, she wasn’t real.

And Villanelle came first.

…

She woke to the sound of knocking.

‘Eve!’ she shouted as the woman came in through the door. Eve hesitated, her face curled into a question.

Villanelle wasted those two seconds feeling smug, spent the next two minutes dying with Eve looking worried beside her.

Villanelle pretended the worry was for her. 

…

Eve Polastri.

…

She woke to the sound of knocking.

She had her, this time. ‘Eve!’ Villanelle yelled, before Eve could get out her line. Silence. She laughed, swinging her legs out of bed, striding to the door. ‘Are you here to shoot me?’

She threw the door open, her grin threatening to cramp her cheeks.

Eve looked startled, the use of her name apparently having thrown her, her gun halfway up, and Villanelle took the opportunity to leap across the service cart, pushing them both to the ground, wrapping her hands around Eve’s throat, her knee across Eve’s forearm, keeping the gun away from her.

Eve’s eyes were beautiful, dark and deep, matching her hair, and Villanelle stared into them as Eve choked, her face turning an ugly shade of purple. She tried not to mind. After all, of course she felt the loss – she’d spent a long time with Eve. It didn’t mean anything, to want to loosen her fingers.

‘Sorry, baby,’ Villanelle said. ‘You weren’t fast enough.’

Eve went limp, and Villanelle’s head split open with pain.

…

She woke to the sound of knocking.

The sound seemed to reach inside her and shake her heart, her lungs, squeezing.

‘I didn’t die!’ she yelled at no one. ‘I didn’t die!’

She could feel herself teetering on the edge of some vast realisation that would crack her open along her seams. Maybe the pounding had been someone else, something else exploding the back of Villanelle’s head?

Eve’s bullet did the job, again. 

…

Maybe Eve was the real one.

What did that make Villanelle?

…

She killed Eve once more, just to confirm.

It took her an embarrassingly long time to learn the patterns (but who would ever know, who would she ever tell?), Eve’s eagerness to shoot her only growing more apparent. But she learned them, learned the way to move to avoid the bullet, what to say to cause Eve to hesitate. It was like being in a play, where the audience was particularly passionate.

She smacked Eve’s wrist into the wall, the gun falling from her hand, and shoved her hard, onto the bed. Eve looked shocked, and Villanelle supposed she probably did look cool, anticipating every move.

‘You’ll be alright in a minute,’ she said, plunging the knife into her stomach. ‘Probably.’

She could see the shock bloom on Eve’s face at the pain, her eyes widening, mouth opening and closing uselessly. Villanelle wanted to kiss her, wanted to bend down and capture her lips, but the moment wouldn’t be right.

They shared Eve’s death, instead.

Her head split. 

…

Villanelle understood. Eve was her judge, jury, executioner, fair and just. Everything existed by the grace of Eve.

Villanelle was only special because of Eve.

It was a bit much.

She had to get out. She just needed to eat, to sleep, for the first time in…

Villanelle managed to jump over the cart again, bouncing Eve’s head off the wall. She left her in the hallway with a pillow under her head, brushing Eve’s hair back from her face with a single finger. She didn’t want to touch her in a way that Eve wouldn’t like.

The street was overwhelming, too many people walking past who weren’t Eve. They looked strange, like bad paintings, their eyes the wrong colour and shape, their hair flat and ugly and yellow. They stared at her, in her white t-shirt and underwear, and she thought about going back to Eve, back to their space.

She hesitated before setting off, waiting for the street to run out into nothingness without Eve there to think it into being.

It didn’t, and the sun continued to rise over her, the world still turning, Eve still alive, wherever she was now. Villanelle hoped she was still in the hotel, that she’d moved to Villanelle’s room, that Eve was touching her things and wondering. She hoped some part of Eve remembered, remembered that she knew Villanelle.

Her breath kept catching as she thought of Eve. It was strange, how much she wanted to see her. The world was boring, in a way the hotel room wasn’t.

At the end of an hour, she turned into an alley-way, standing behind a dumpster and sticking her hand into her underwear. She wasn’t turned on, not at all, but she found if she concentrated on the image of Eve’s face as the knife plunged into Villanelle’s stomach she was able to get there, furious and raw and wanting.

She sank to her knees, putting her forehead against the bricks, and breathed.

Her head split.

…

She wondered if she was the serpent or the husband to Eve. She hoped she was the snake, the devil, as her mother believed. He’d given Eve freedom, he’d given her the world, and all Adam had done was take.

…

She woke to the sound of knocking, and waited for Eve to enter.

She pulled Eve close to her, the bullet ramming through her stomach, her spine, carving out a piece of her and making everything below her ribs numb. They fell back onto the bed, Eve landing on Villanelle’s hips. She wished she could feel it. She reached for Eve’s waist, was only able to snag the front of her ugly turtleneck jumper, letting the blood flow uninterrupted as Eve looked down at her.

‘Are you happy, Eve?’ she said.

‘I don’t know,’ Eve whispered.

‘I could make you happy.’

…

If Villanelle left, Eve died, somehow. If Villanelle stayed, Villanelle died.

Eve obviously didn’t want them to be separated.

…

She twisted under Eve’s judgement as she kept failing to find the words to make her understand. Everything had to be perfect and Villanelle kept falling short.

Villanelle wanted to show her she accepted it, wanted to show she would try again, but couldn’t make her body lie still enough.

Eve always watched, always looked her in the eye.

How intoxicating, to be on the other side of it. To see the eyes of her killer, to feel the weight of her life as the pain closed in. And Eve offered it, again and again, the impact never fading from her face, the kill new and fresh each time. There was something intimate about it. Like orgasm, Eve helped her over the edge again and again, the expression on her face changing depending on what Villanelle had said, if she screamed Eve’s name, if she begged for help, if she confessed her sins.

If she reached out for Eve, Eve would take her hand, because Eve did not remember that Villanelle had killed her for that compassion once, ugly and ungrateful as she was. Lucky. If she pulled Eve on top of her, Eve would sink her weight against Villanelle, close enough for Villanelle to feel her breath.

Eve cared.

…

She touched Eve’s cheek, a tear dropping against her finger.

‘Don’t cry,’ she said.

‘It’s not for you,’ Eve said.

But Villanelle knew that it was. Villanelle had been made for Eve, to protect her, so how could Eve not be sad to see her go?

…

She woke to the sound of knocking.

…

She woke.

…

‘What are you thinking?’

‘You’re dying.’

‘Are you thinking about that?’

‘Really?’

‘I want to know.’

‘I’m thinking I don’t know who I am, after this.’

‘You’re Eve.’

…

She couldn’t tempt Eve from the room, didn’t have the words, didn’t have any apples to offer her.

Villanelle didn’t think it was fair, how she died again and again and didn’t get a crumb of trust back. She knew the big things about Eve, her righteousness, her anger, her compassion, but didn’t know any little things.

She tried not to take it all so personally. She had all the time in the world, couldn’t die in a way that mattered, and Eve would keep coming to her. There would be time.

But Villanelle was surely owed, by now.

…

She existed to take Eve from the Garden.

…

She stabbed the knife down into Eve’s thigh, muffling the woman’s scream with her hand. Eve didn’t seem to understand that Villanelle was doing it for them, for their future. To protect Eve, by finding something she could use to get them both out of that room. 

She might be the world, but she bled.

‘Tell me everything,’ she said. ‘Please.’

‘What do you want to know?’ Eve panted, tears running down her face, scared. Villanelle wanted to soothe her, hating herself for forcing this from Eve. Villanelle had never had a gentle touch, breaking the things she wanted against the strength of her desire.

‘Everything,’ Villanelle said. ‘Why are you here? What music do you like? Who do you love? Where did you go to school? What is your favourite colour? Tell me everything.’

Eve told her, all about not being believed when she’d tracked the dangerous female psychopath – ‘Rude,’ Villanelle said – so she’d decided to take matters into her own hands, about Fleetwood Mac, about her husband, about her American school, about the colour blue, her voice soothing parts of Villanelle she didn’t know needed attention.

Villanelle untied her sometime in the night, handing her the gun. Eve didn’t use it, leaving the room, leg dragging behind her, leaving a line of red on the carpet.

Villanelle slept, dreaming of Eve’s eyes, her hair, her face. She woke to nothing, in the late morning, and stared at the knife, wondering if she could go back.

Her head split.

…

Villanelle let Eve take an apology in blood, knew her words weren’t enough.

She hit the gun from Eve’s hands with the unfair advantage she had, the knowledge of Eve’s every move, how to lure her into the room. Eve curled her hands into fists, flinching back as Villanelle offered her the knife instead, handle out. 

Eve reached out, closing her fingers around the knife, staring at Villanelle.

‘It’s OK,’ Villanelle said.

‘Is this a trick?’

‘Are you scared?’

It was enough, Eve sinking the knife in, offering release. She never could say no to a dare.

…

‘Your name is Eve Polastri! Your favourite colour is blue, and you are capable of killing me so you don’t have anything to prove!’

Eve lowered the gun, looking at Villanelle.

‘Everyone’s favourite colour is blue,’ Eve said, and Villanelle laughed at the newness of the statement.

‘Your favourite subject at school was legal studies.’

Eve frowned. ‘How do you know that?’

Villanelle thought about Eve’s bloody face, the way her teeth had been caked in the stuff. Thought about Eve, hovering over her, close enough to kiss. ‘We’re lovers,’ she said. ‘In the future.’

‘What?’ Eve frowned, knuckles whitening around the grip of the gun. She lifted.

‘You tell me all of that in bed, three weeks from now,’ Villanelle said. She tried to keep her voice calm, slow, but she’d long ago given up thinking she could predict Eve.

It was nice, even if it was painful.

…

The right combination of words is this:

‘I don’t want to hurt you. Your favourite colour is blue. You like Fleetwood Mac. You don’t like oranges. You’re being hunted by the Twelve and I would like to help you. You can keep the gun. You can shoot me later. But please, listen to me now.’

Eve left with her, and the newness of it all made it feel unreal, Villanelle scraping her knuckles over the rough stone walls as they walked to keep herself grounded.

They didn’t get far, someone shooting them as they headed for the train. Still. Proof of concept was a nice thing.

…

Eve tied her hands behind her back, at the hotel, after five false starts.

Villanelle had chosen this one as the furthest from where they’ve seen the assassins without being in another city, Eve hovering behind her at the check-in.

‘Uh, twin beds?’ the person at the front desk had asked.

‘No, a double,’ Villanelle had smiled, brushing her fingertips against Eve’s.

Eve hadn’t said anything at the time, but she knew it was one reason Eve was mad at her, now.

‘You don’t need to be scared of me.’ Villanelle smiled as Eve cinched the shoelaces tighter around Villanelle’s wrists. Eve was going easy on her, Villanelle knew.

Eve didn’t answer. She wasn’t ready, didn’t understand herself yet, Villanelle’s life robbing her of that self-awareness.

Her hand constantly hovered over the gun as though Villanelle doesn’t know all the ways to disarm her, physically and with words. She wouldn’t, though. If Eve needed to kill her this time, she would just be better next time.

She almost didn’t know how to fall asleep, laying on the floor on her side and closing her eyes. Her body remembered, plunging her into the first sleep of an age.

She woke to Eve turning on the shower. Her wrists were sore, but her head was clear.

…

The Twelve caught up to them, and Villanelle woke to the realisation that this Eve hadn’t left with her, hadn’t snored in a bed above her, this Eve hadn’t ordered Villanelle to take off her shoes before taking the laces from them like Villanelle was on suicide watch.

It was harder than it should have been.

…

‘You think I’ve killed you?’

‘You have.’

‘In the future?’

‘In the past, I think.’

‘How many times?’

‘Only a couple. I worked it all out pretty quickly.’

Eve never believed her, but she didn’t have to – learning was Villanelle’s commandment.

…

It took Villanelle fifty-three time to get them further than four weeks, the Twelve ruthless in their pursuit.

Eve had killed her nine of those times.

Eve didn’t know what she’d done to incur the wrath of the Twelve, just that she’d shown up to kill Villanelle – ‘Sorry about that, by the way’ – and ended up on the run with her instead.

‘You got close to something,’ Villanelle said. ‘Maybe me. I’m very important.’

The most important woman in the world smiled. ‘Of course.’

They’d ended up in Scotland. It was cold, but far enough away from prying eyes and the CCTV plaguing London that perhaps they’d be safe, this time.

Villanelle got used to sleeping and waking again, to eating and standing in the open air. She got used to waking up to Eve moving around the cottage, her footsteps light.

She slept with her door open, so that Eve would never have to knock.

…

The further they got from the room, the more Villanelle had to lose.

She hadn't expected that. 

…

‘I love you,’ she said, a week into their stay at the cottage. 

‘You don’t know what that is.’

And, well. Villanelle deserved a lot of things, but she didn’t deserve that, didn't deserve those words stretching out into her future.

Her head split.

…

Maybe it was unfair to reset their relationship like that, maybe it was Villanelle’s fault for expecting mercy, rather than Eve’s for not giving it.

But if the universe revolved around Eve, the course of history revolved around Villanelle. She couldn’t let it go on like that.

…

But this Eve hadn’t done anything, hadn’t laughed at Villanelle’s jokes, or asked her how she liked her tea, or cooked her pasta.

(This Eve hadn’t cracked Villanelle’s heart in two like it was nothing.)

She'd never wanted to have someone know her before, to have someone remember, to build a life with them that was about unfolding layers of personality rather than just taking off their pants. Maybe it would have been worth the hurt, for Eve to remember. 

What she really wanted to be new, to be clean, like Eve, for Eve. To not remember her, as Eve didn’t remember her, so they could start again without the uneven footing of their experiences, so that Villanelle could know when the right time to feel love would be. The history between them stretched forever, for Villanelle, full of Eve’s blood, full of Eve’s punishments and forgiveness. Full of something beautiful and untouchable.

And Eve kept forgetting.

…

She wouldn't make her forget again. Wouldn't cheat her way into Eve's affections. 

…

Villanelle got them back to the cottage, finally, five weeks of going through the rehearsed steps, Eve’s words following her like a smell.

She spent that day flitting on the edges of Eve’s vision, hurt in an unexplainable way, short with Eve in a way she didn’t quite deserve. Not this Eve, anyway.

‘Have I upset you?’ Eve said, hovering in the doorway.

‘Not yet.’

Eve rolled her eyes, and Villanelle folded her arms, looked away.

‘Well, can I cheer you up?’

Villanelle looked at her for a long moment, and Eve flushed, left.

Eve came to her that night, as Villanelle was getting changed for bed. Eve was wearing only a dressing gown, cinched tight around her waist, the fabric draped over her curves in a way Villanelle envied. Villanelle wished she had something similarly flattering on, wished she could match Eve’s ethereality instead of being caught in the mundanity of dressing, one leg in, one leg out.

‘Eve,’ she breathed.

‘Undress,’ Eve said, harsh.

Villanelle slipped her clothes back off, fingers clumsy with disbelief as she shrugged the fabric from her shoulders. She felt like she couldn’t breathe, like she would die here. She was ready for it, ready for Eve’s eyes on her twisted body. Ready to go back to the start.

Eve looked at her for a long moment, eyes running over her breasts, her hips, her hands, before she reached out to touch her, nails scraping over her bare skin. Villanelle broke into goose-bumps, all her body straining to touch Eve back. She wanted to be consumed, wanted to consume, wished they were the same person so she would never be alone again, would never have to wake up without Eve.

‘No,’ Eve said, as Villanelle’s hands twitched towards her. Villanelle curled her fingers into fists to stop them betraying her as Eve closed the distance between them, pressing her still-robed body against Villanelle’s cold skin. Eve closed her eyes, making her way around Villanelle’s body by feel alone, her soft hands offering pleasure where Villanelle had only known pain, her palms coming to rest flat against Villanelle’s stomach.

‘I’m yours,’ Villanelle said.

‘No.’

‘Yes. I never want to be anything else,’ Villanelle said. ‘Please.’

Eve kissed her, scratching her nails down Villanelle’s back, lines of pain raking across her shoulder blades, down her spine. Villanelle arched her back, trying to force the nails deeper. ‘Touch me.’

Villanelle did, reverently. 

‘Harder,’ Eve said, her voice low, husky, angry. ‘Touch me like you mean it.’

Villanelle sank to her knees, reaching up for the tie around Eve’s waist. Eve’s fingers tangled in her hair, and she nodded, eyes half-lidded.

Villanelle slipped her robe open, slipped her underwear down, and tasted Eve. Between her own legs throbbed, demanding touch, and god she was being greedy because wasn’t it enough to hear Eve moan above her, to feel the pain in her scalp as Eve’s grip tightened, to feel herself grow wet with pleasure?

She would do this forever, she thought, flicking her tongue against Eve’s clit, the woman above her trembling. She would bring pleasure forever. This was what she was made for, this was what she had died for.

Eve.

…

She never wanted to have that first again, never wanted Eve to forget again. But Villanelle fucked that up, cocky and confident with Eve’s love in her hands.

She cried when she woke, couldn’t look at the new Eve, wanted old Eve who had touched her, who had touched her, who had loved her.

‘I can’t kill you like this,’ Eve said.

‘Then you’re weaker than I thought,’ Villanelle hissed.

She dragged herself to Eve’s feet, after, rested her head on Eve’s shoe. Eve didn’t move, as she knew she wouldn’t.

The pain of dying was second to the pain of losing her.

…

Eve could have chosen someone else, anyone else, but who else could remember and admire, rather than fear? Who else would be strong enough to wait for Eve to fall in love with them, again and again and again and again and again?

…

She got them into year two, the Twelve seemingly willing to believe Eve wasn’t a threat after the first ten months, leaving them alone in their third safe house in Spain.

She loved Eve, she knew, every version of her, every slight permutation. But she didn’t want another, didn't want to go back to day one ever again, not when day seven hundred and sixty was so much better.

(This Eve had walked across the room at Villanelle’s look, had pushed her backwards onto the bed and sat on her face, pressing her cunt hard to Villanelle’s mouth, pushed Villanelle’s hands away as they reached for her. Hadn’t even touched Villanelle back, told her to finish herself off, and then just watched, like she had every morning once upon a time.

Eve preferred to be overpowered, now, wanted to feel Villanelle’s strength, wanted to know she had control over a killer.

Villanelle just wanted.)

…

‘I’m yours.’

‘We’re each other’s.’

…

Maybe history was more important than existing.

She would keep this. 

She wouldn't go back. 

…

‘You told me, once, that I don’t understand love.’

‘That wasn't me.’

…

She learned that Eve preferred her coffee bitter, that she only liked shows where somebody died, that she was a needy sick person, that she hated cold water, that she could listen to the same song over and over without getting bored.

She learned where Eve liked to be touched, to be kissed, where Eve wanted her hands when she was upset, when she was angry.

She learned how to be entertained in normality, how to have hobbies and interests beyond killing. 

She learned how to make Eve laugh, reliably. They had inside jokes that nobody else could understand, associations that created a short-hand. 

She learned that Eve’s eyes grew even darker as she got older, that the hair at her temples went grey. That she preferred reading to watching television as her hearing started to fail.

She learned the way Eve’s face changed, her laugh lines deepening, her skin shifting slightly from where it once was. It was nice. It was so nice, to watch the woman she loved live and remember, to watch their history weather both their faces.

She didn’t want to see any other Eve than this one, old and tender. The Eve she had managed to save, after so much failure. 

Her Eve.

…

‘Villanelle?’

‘I’m here.’

‘I'll love you again.’

…

She woke.

**Author's Note:**

> Talk to me. 
> 
> chillinglikeavillanelle.tumblr.com

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Eve (Podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20554952) by [cupidmarwani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupidmarwani/pseuds/cupidmarwani)




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